By Nick Carey and Andy Sullivan GRAND RAPIDS, Mich./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When President-elect Donald Trump returns to this factory town on Friday for a victory celebration, he will find a region that is already experiencing the manufacturing renaissance he promised on the campaign trail. With local factories employing more workers than any time since the late 1990s, assembly line jobs are not hard to find. "We can barely make ends meet and we're stuck going nowhere," said auto parts worker Michael Baum, 22, as he smoked a cigarette in the parking lot of a Family Dollar discount store.

The businesswoman spearheading the Brexit legal challenge has told impatient Leave voters they should "go and knock on Number 10". Gina Miller, an investment manager and philanthropist, has become the figurehead of the legal challenge which argues Theresa May should not be able to trigger Article 50 to begin Brexit proceedings without a vote by MPs. On 3 November, the High Court ruled in favour of Mrs Miller and the Government appealed, sending the case to the Supreme Court.

A Southern Railway passenger had her job offer withdrawn because she would be relying on the strike-hit service to get to work, according to her MP. Delays and cancellations have affected hundreds of thousands of passengers using Southern Railway in recent months. Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, Nick Herbert, says the impact of action taken by "selfish" unions was "catastrophic".

Some 400 African migrants forced their way into the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Friday, authorities said, the biggest group in a decade to storm the walled city bordering Morocco in search of asylum.

By Silvia Aloisi and Paola Arosio MILAN (Reuters) - The European Central Bank has rejected a request by Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena for more time to raise capital, a source said on Friday, a decision that piles pressure on the Rome government to bail out the lender. Italy's third-largest bank, and the world's oldest, had asked for a three-week extension until January 20 to try to wrap up a privately funded, 5-billion-euro (4.21 billion pound) rescue plan in the face of fresh political uncertainty. The ECB's supervisory board turned down the request at a meeting on Friday on the grounds that a delay would be of little use and that it was time for Rome to step in, the source said.

It’s become fashionable to complain about 2016, with its seemingly never-ending stream of political upsets and celebrity deaths. But could next year be even worse? MORE: Polar bear numbers could drop by a third in 40 years, research says MORE: Police officer killed after huge sinkhole opens up in road in Texas Sadly, there are already a couple of signs that 2017 is going to continue the trends of this year – in other words, doom, despair and disturbance of the status quo.

More than 80 potential suspects have been identified in connection with allegations of historical child sex abuse in football. The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said the number of people who have made allegations remains at 350. It revealed that 98% of those identified as victims were male and the age of potential victims at the time of the alleged abuse ranged from as young as seven through to 20.

Britain's Brexit minister David Davis is "not really interested" in a transitional deal to cushion the country from the effects of leaving the European Union, he told a private meeting with the City of London Corporation, the Financial Times reported on Friday. The FT, citing a memo of a meeting on Nov. 15 made by an unidentified City of London Corporation representative, said Davis would consider a transitional deal only in order to "be kind" to the EU.

Sofia Vergara is facing a lawsuit brought on behalf of two frozen embryos she created with an ex-partner. The two embryos, listed as plaintiffs "Emma" and "Isabella", are the subject of a year-long legal battle between the Modern Family star and ex-fiancee Nick Loeb. In papers filed with a Louisiana court this week, Mr Loeb ended a former lawsuit against the actress and replaced it with a new one.

(Reuters) - McDonald's Corp said on Thursday it would move its international tax base to the United Kingdom from Luxembourg after coming under increased scrutiny from European Union regulators over its tax arrangements in the small country. McDonald's said it would create a new international holding company domiciled in the UK that would receive the majority of royalties from licensing deals outside the United States. "We are aligning our corporate structure with the way we do business, which is no longer in geographies, but in segments that group together countries with common market and growth characteristics," McDonald's said in a statement.

By Tom Westbrook and Charlotte Greenfield SYDNEY/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the Solomon Islands early on Friday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties and a tsunami warning for a wide swathe of the South Pacific was later lifted. Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office director Loti Yates said he received reports of collapsed buildings on Malaita, an island near the epicentre of the massive undersea quake, which had initially prompted a tsunami watch as far afield as Hawaii. "Most houses are built by traditional materials, so some houses are reported to have been damaged in south Malaita but the extent is not known," Yates told Reuters by telephone.

By Eric Auchard and Tom Käckenhoff FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Technical trade secrets were stolen from the steel production and manufacturing plant design divisions of ThyssenKrupp AG in cyber attacks earlier this year, the German company said on Thursday. ThyssenKrupp, one of the world's largest steel makers, said it had been targeted by attackers located in southeast Asia engaged in what it said were "organised, highly professional hacker activities". In breaches discovered by the company's internal security team in April and traced back to February, hackers stole project data from ThyssenKrupp's plant engineering division and from other areas yet to be determined.

(Reuters) - The publisher of the Daily Mail said on Thursday it would reduce its holding in Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc to about 49 percent from about 67 percent to improve its investment portfolio and lower its debt. Daily Mail and General Trust Plc (DMGT) said it plans to sell about 32 million shares in Euromoney, publisher of the Euromoney magazine, via a secondary placing and a buyback of shares by Euromoney. DMGT reported an 11 percent drop in its adjusted operating profit for the year to end-September, partially hurt by a 4 percent fall in Euromoney revenue on an underlying basis.

Chapecoense defender and plane crash survivor Alan Ruschel released a video message to the world as he takes tentative steps to his recovery. Ruschel reportedly underwent spinal surgery after being rescued from the rubble of the LaMia plane in Colombia. In the video, Ruschel thanked everyone for the support and affection he had received in the past few days.

Russell Crowe will face no charges over claims he assaulted rapper Azealia Banks in a hotel room, prosecutors have said. In October, the 25-year-old rapper accused Crowe of grabbing her by the neck, spitting on her and being racially abusive, before throwing her out of a party at his Beverly Hills hotel room. The Gladiator star denied accusations, saying it was Banks who was verbally and physically abusive to other guests, forcing him to throw her out.

Families bereaved by the bin lorry crash in Glasgow that killed six people have been denied the right to launch a private prosecution against the driver. Harry Clarke lost consciousness at the wheel in George Square three days before Christmas 2014. The case was brought by the family of crash victims Jack and Lorraine Sweeney, aged 68 and 69, and their granddaughter Erin McQuade, 18, after Scotland's Crown Office decided not to prosecute.

By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will let Ukrainians and Georgians visit the bloc freely after diplomats and lawmakers agreed on Thursday on an emergency brake to suspend visa waivers, ending an EU dispute holding this up. The agreement paved the way for visa waivers for first Georgia and then Ukraine. Now the final stretch towards visa free travel for Ukraine and Georgia," said European Council President Donald Tusk.